What Happened To Green Day?

A lengthy new article at Billboard.com analyzes the disappointing sales of Green Day's recent triple album release, Uno!, Dos! and Tre!. The last two, Dos! and Tre!, each sold less than 100,000 copies in their first weeks of release, which the article says "would have been unimaginable as recently as a few months ago for Green Day." Dos!moved 69,000 copies in November, while Tre! shifted just 58,000 to land at Number 13 on this week's album chart. Uno! did a respectable 139,000 copies in its first week back in September, but has swiftly slid down the chart since.

The Billboard piece theorizes that the band's inability to promote the latter two albums, due to frontman Billie Joe Armstrong retreating into rehab in late September following a meltdown at a Las Vegas festival, hurt the sales of both.

Green Day canceled all promotional appearance and live shows for the rest of 2012 and at least the first two months of 2013, with no word yet on when the band will begin rescheduling its tour dates.

Even the band's high-profile single for the soundtrack of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2, called "The Forgotten," failed to get much of a push.

Billboard also speculated whether the sheer volume of music the band released -- 37 songs within 78 days -- was too much for fans to handle, while there wasn't enough time between albums to promote singles as fully as possible either.

Finally, the article addresses the music itself, saying, "Whatever overall message Green Day wanted to convey on these three albums evaporates by the time the song list reaches the 20th track; the chapters are there, but they don't add up to a satisfying book."